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 Journal of Optics

J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802 (7pp) https://doi.org/10.1088/2040-8986/aa9ec0

3.05kW monolithic fiber laser oscillator with

simultaneous optimizations of stimulated
Raman scattering and transverse mode
instability
Baolai Yang1,2,3 , Hanwei Zhang1,2,3, Chen Shi1,2,3, Rumao Tao1,2,3,
Rongtao Su1,2,3, Pengfei Ma1,2,3, Xiaolin Wang1,2,3,4, Pu Zhou1,2,3,
Xiaojun Xu1,2,3,4 and Qisheng Lu1,2,3
1
College of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, National University of Defense Technology,
Changsha 410073, People’s Republic of China
2
Hunan Provincial Key Laboratory of High Energy Laser Technology, Changsha 410073, People’s
Republic of China
3
Hunan Provincial Collaborative Innovation Center of High Power Fiber Laser, Changsha 410073,
People’s Republic of China

E-mail: chinawxllin@163.com and xu_xiaojun@126.com

Received 29 August 2017, revised 27 November 2017

Accepted for publication 1 December 2017
Published 8 January 2018

Abstract
We report a high power monolithic ytterbium-doped fiber laser oscillator with an output power
of 3.05 kW, which is achieved by simultaneous optimizations of the stimulated Raman scattering
(SRS) and transverse mode instability (TMI). The optimizations of the SRS are designed and
utilized in the construction of the fiber laser oscillator, while the TMI threshold is optimized with
the study of the dependence of TMI threshold on the pump distribution. In the fiber laser
oscillator, the TMI threshold is enhanced by ∼30% when the counter-pump scheme is employed
instead of the co-pump scheme. By applying bidirectional-pump scheme and appropriately
distributing the pump power, the TMI threshold is further enhanced and the monolithic fiber
laser oscillator achieves an output power of 3.05 kW with near diffraction limited beam quality.
Keywords: fiber laser oscillator, ytterbium-doped fiber laser, transverse mode instability,
stimulated Raman scattering
(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction and the other is directly based on a single-stage monolithic

High power monolithic fiber lasers are widely adopted in the
applications of industrial manufacture and beam combination,
for the advantages of high conversion efficiency, good beam
quality, compact structure, stability and robustness. In the last
decade, the output powers of the ytterbium-doped monolithic
fiber lasers have increased remarkably [1–3]. Generally, a
high power fiber laser can be achieved based on two struc-
tures, one is master oscillator power amplification (MOPA)
4
Authors to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
fiber laser oscillator. Compared with the MOPA structure, the
single-stage monolithic fiber laser oscillators enjoy the
advantages of simpler structure, fewer components and easier
operations. Benefitting from the improved manufacture
techniques of ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF), laser diodes
(LDs) and fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), the output power of
monolithic fiber laser oscillators have increased remarkably in
the past few years [4–10]. In 2012, Y Xiao et al reported a
monolithic fiber laser oscillator with an output power of
1 kW, which was pumped by 91x-nm high power wave-
length-beam-combined diode-stack modules [4]. In 2014, H

2040-8978/18/025802+07$33.00 1 © 2018 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK

J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802
Yu et al of our research group reported a 1.5 kW monolithic
fiber laser oscillator in a similar scheme employing high-
power 915 nm LDs and a ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF) with
20 μm core diameter [6]. The stimulated Raman scattering
(SRS) effect was obviously observed at the operation of
1.5 kW and further power scaling was limited. For the
monolithic fiber laser oscillators constructed with 915 nm
pump sources and 20 μm-core diameter YDF, the SRS
became a main limitation for power scaling.
Theoretically, the limitation of SRS can be mitigated by
increasing the gain fiber mode area or by decreasing the gain
fiber length. Both techniques were explored for power scaling
of the monolithic fiber laser oscillators during the past few
years. In 2016, researchers in Fujikura reported a specially
designed gain fiber with a mode area of 400 μm2, which
showed remarkable SRS suppression and single-mode
operation. Based on the designed gain fiber and corresp-
onding FBGs, output powers of 2 kW and 3 kW were
respectively achieved in 2016 and 2017 with 915 nm pump
sources in bidirectional-pump configurations [9, 10]. Alter-
natively, our group chose to mitigate the SRS by decreasing
gain fiber length, while maintaining the gain fiber core dia-
meter of ∼20 μm. Instead of 915 nm LDs, the commercial
high-power 976 nm LDs are utilized to enhance the pump
absorption. However, the transverse mode instability (TMI)
was observed in the 976 nm-pumped fiber laser oscillators
and become a power scaling limitation [2, 7, 11]. By
employing TMI mitigation techniques, we achieved an output
power of 2.5 kW in a bidirectional-pumped monolithic fiber
laser oscillator [8]. With the output power increasing, Raman
stokes light was observed at the operation of 2.5 kW with
intensity of ∼20 dB below the signal. For further power
scaling of the fiber laser oscillators, further mitigation of the
SRS and TMI needs to be explored.
In this paper, we report a high power monolithic fiber
laser oscillator with an output power of 3.05 kW, which is
achieved by simultaneously optimizing the SRS and TMI.
The optimizations of the SRS are designed and utilized in the
construction of the fiber laser oscillator, while the TMI
threshold is optimized through the study of the dependence of
TMI threshold on the pump power distribution. Experimental
results show the TMI threshold is enhanced by ∼30% when
the counter-pump scheme is employed instead of the co-pump
scheme. By applying a bidirectional-pump scheme and opti-
mizing pump power distribution, the TMI threshold is further
enhanced. With the optimizations of the SRS and TMI, the
output laser power is scaled to 3.05 kW with near diffraction
limited beam quality.
2. Experimental setup
The architecture of the all-fiber laser oscillator is depicted in
figure 1. The pump source is high-power wavelength-stabi-
lized 976 nm laser diodes. Each LD module provides a
maximum pump power of ∼500 W. Two tapered fused
bundle (TFB) combiners are adopted to constitute a bidirec-
tional pumping configuration. The 7×1 TFB pump
2
B Yang et al
combiner is employed as the co-pump combiner, while the
(6+1)×1 signal/pump combiner acts as the counter-pump
combiner. The difference of the two TFB combiners is
whether a signal port is contained in the fiber bundle. The
pump ports of the TFB combiners are multimode fiber with
core/cladding diameters of 220/242 μm, and the unoccupied
ports are angle cleaved to avoid facet reflection. Both the TFB
combiners combine the pump light into the inner cladding of
the output fiber with a diameter of 400 μm and a numerical
aperture (NA) of 0.46. The co-pump light is launched into the
laser cavity through the high reflectivity fiber Bragg gratings
(HR FBG). The (6+1)×1 signal/pump combiner is
incorporated in the laser cavity and the counter-pump light is
directly launched into the ytterbium-doped fiber (YDF). The
signal port of the (6+1)×1 signal/pump combiner is a
double-cladding fiber with a core diameter/numerical aper-
ture of 20 μm/0.065. The gain fiber is double-cladding YDF
with 21 μm/0.065NA core and 400 μm/0.46NA inner clad-
ding. As the absorption coefficient of the YDF at 976 nm is
∼1.45 dB m−1, we adopt a length of ∼18 m YDF to ensure
adequate absorption of the pump light. The gain fiber is coiled
in circles with a minimum diameter of ∼12 cm. In the
experiment, both the FBGs are inscribed on the double
cladding fiber with core/inner cladding diameter of 20/
400 μm and operate at the center wavelength of ∼1080 nm.
The HR FBG provides a reflectivity of ∼99.9% with a 3 dB
bandwidth of ∼3 nm, while the output coupler fiber Bragg
gratings (OC FBG) has a reflectivity of ∼8.7% with a 3 dB
bandwidth of ∼1 nm. After the OC FBG, about 6 m delivery
fiber with core/inner cladding diameter of 25/400 μm is
utilized and an endcap is spliced to eliminate facet reflection.
Three parts of cladding light strippers (CLS) are utilized to
fully dump residual pumping and signal light that propagates
in the inner cladding. All of the components in the experi-
ment, including YDF, LDs, TFB combiners, FBGs and CLSs,
are placed on a water-cooled heat sink to carry away the heat
accumulation. In the experiment, the performance of the
output laser, including powers, optical spectra, temporal
characteristics and beam quality, are measured and recorded.
The temporal characteristic of the output laser is measured by
using a photodetector with a bandwidth of 150 MHz. The
beam quality is measured by using a beam quality analyzer
(PRIMES).
In the experiment, the occurrence of TMI is mainly
verified with the evidence of temporal signals of the output
laser. When the fiber laser reaches the TMI threshold, laser
energy couples between the fundamental mode and the high-
order modes. For monolithic fiber laser amplifiers and oscil-
lators with CLS, it is common that a rollover output power
will be observed, because the coupled high-order modes
experience a higher fiber bending loss, leak into the fiber
inner cladding and get stripped out by the CLS. Conse-
quently, a remarkable fluctuation can be observed in the
temporal signals [7, 8, 11–13]. It is an efficient and widely
adopted method to verify the occurrence of TMI in monolithic
fiber lasers. It should also be noted that we have a total of nine
high-power LD modules in the experiment. The LD dis-
tribution depicted in figure 1 is a finally optimized distribution
J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802
Figure 1. The experimental setup (LDs: laser diodes, YDF: ytterbium doped fiber, CLS: cladding light stripper, CO: collimator, PM: power
meter, HR: high reflector).
for power scaling. During the measurement of the TMI
thresholds in the respective co-pump and counter-pump
schemes, we shifted some LDs and employed the unoccupied
ports of the TFB combiners to provide adequate pump power.
To avoid confusion, the description of LD shifting is
neglected and only pump powers are provided in the co-pump
and counter-pump schemes. During the process of optimizing
pump distribution in the bidirectional-pump scheme, the
distribution of the LDs will be described specifically in the
corresponding section.
Compared with the previously reported 2.5 kW mono-
lithic fiber laser oscillator [8], we made several optimizations
to mitigate the SRS effect. The reflectivity of OC FBG is
slightly decreased from 10% to 8.7%, in order to reduce the
energy density in the laser cavity. The minimum coiling
diameter of the gain fiber is increased from ∼10 cm to
∼12 cm, which mitigates the mode area reduction caused by
the fiber coiling [14]. The length of the gain fiber is also
reduced by ∼1 m. Besides, the operating wavelength is
shifted from ∼1070 nm to ∼1080 nm. The Raman stokes
light of ∼1070 nm is around ∼1120 nm, while the Raman
stokes light of ∼1080 nm is around ∼1130 nm. It is known
that the total gain of the Raman stokes light is composed of
the Raman gain and the Yb gain in the gain fiber [15, 16]. The
laser at ∼1130 nm acquires less Yb gain in the gain fiber than
the laser at ∼1120 nm, which helps to reduce the intensity of
Raman stokes light. In addition, the bend loss is larger for
longer wavelengths, which also helps to suppress the Raman
stokes light at 1130 nm. The effect of these optimizations will
be shown in the next section.
3. Experimental results and discussion
The optimizations to mitigate the SRS, such as the signal
wavelength shifting and the increase of the gain fiber coiling
diameter, also have a negative influence on the TMI threshold
[11]. It is necessary to confirm whether the TMI threshold of
the monolithic fiber laser oscillator is seriously affected.
Therefore, we firstly investigate the TMI thresholds of the
monolithic fiber laser oscillator in different pump
distributions.
3
B Yang et al
3.1. TMI thresholds in respective co-pump and counter-pump
schemes
In the respective co-pump scheme and counter-pump scheme,
the output laser power and corresponding temporal signals are
measured and recorded at different pump power levels. The
standard deviations of the temporal signals are calculated and
utilized to quantify the stability of the temporal signals
[17–19], which serve as proof to verify the occurrence of
TMI. The dependence of the output power and temporal
signal standard deviations on the pump power are shown in
figure 2. In the co-pump scheme, the output power of the laser
oscillator increases with the pump power almost linearly until
the rollover power of 1.45 kW, as shown in figure 2(a).
Around the rollover output power, the standard deviations of
the temporal signals increase remarkably. While in the
counter-pump scheme, the output power of the laser oscillator
is scaled to a maximum power of 1.93 kW. Further increasing
the pump power leads to a decrease in the output power along
with a notable instability in the temporal signal. Judging from
the evidence of the rollover output power and the remarkable
increase of the temporal stability, the TMI thresholds of the
monolithic fiber laser oscillator are confirmed to be ∼1.45 kW
and ∼1.93 kW in respective co-pump and counter-pump
scheme. Compared with the reported TMI threshold of
∼1.6 kW in [8], the TMI threshold of this fiber laser oscillator
in co-pump scheme is lower, but the amount of threshold
decline is minor. From the measured TMI thresholds of the
fiber laser oscillator in co-pump and counter-pump schemes,
we can also find that the TMI threshold is enhanced by ∼30%
when the counter-pump scheme is employed instead of the
co-pump scheme. In the previous studies on the TMI in fiber
amplifiers, it has been reported that counter-pump scheme can
enhance the TMI threshold through the gain saturation effect
[20–23]. The gain saturation effect may also play an impor-
tant role in enhancing the TMI thresholds of the fiber laser
oscillator.
It is also quite an interesting phenomenon that the
modulation frequencies of the temporal signal fluctuation
around the TMI threshold are distinctly different in the co-
pump and counter-pump schemes, as shown in figure 3. In the
co-pump scheme, the modulation frequencies of the temporal
signal around the TMI threshold are at ∼220 Hz and
J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802
Figure 2. Output power and standard deviation of the temporal signals at different pump powers (a) in the co-pump scheme and (b) in the
counter-pump scheme.
Figure 3. The time domain signals and their Fourier spectra at the TMI thresholds (a) in the co-pump scheme and (b) in the counter-pump
scheme.
∼410 Hz, while, in the counter-pump scheme, the modulation
frequencies of the temporal signal around the TMI threshold
are at ∼2 kHz and ∼4 kHz. In the experiment, only the pump
scheme was altered and all of the other conditions remained
unchanged. This phenomenon is probably caused by the
change of the pump distributions, but the exact physical
mechanism of the phenomenon is uncertain for now. More-
over, there was no similar phenomenon reported in the pre-
vious studies of TMI in the fiber lasers, to the best of our
knowledge. Most reports of TMI with description of the
modulation frequencies were observed in the single-pass fiber
amplifiers [13, 17, 18, 24, 25]. For studies of TMI in the fiber
laser oscillators, the reports are rare, and there is no suitable
theoretical model that can simulate the modal coupling
dynamics in the fiber laser oscillators. The exact physical
mechanism under the phenomenon is uncertain for now, and
we will make an effort in the following work. A theoretical
model, which is utilized to simulate the TMI in double-pass
fiber laser amplifiers, might be taken as reference in dealing
with the interactions of bidirectional signals and thermo-optic
4
B Yang et al
index perturbations in the simulation of the fiber laser oscil-
lators [26]. More studies are required before an exact expla-
nation can be provided.
3.2. Optimization of the pump distribution in the bidirectional-
pump scheme
For further scaling the output power of the monolithic fiber
laser oscillator, the performance of the bidirectional-pumped
fiber laser oscillator is investigated. In consideration of the
recorded TMI thresholds in the co-pump and counter-pump
schemes, the co-pump and counter-pump powers have to be
controlled below 2 kW and 2.75 kW, respectively. Therefore,
the ratios of the co-pump and counter-pump power are not
evenly distributed. Among a total of nine LDs, three LDs are
distributed as the co-pumps, and six LDs are distributed as the
counter-pumps. The output power dependence on the total
pump power in bidirectional pump scheme is shown in
figure 4(a). When the respective co-pump and counter-pump
powers are ∼1.55 kW and ∼2.6 kW, a rollover output power
J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802
Figure 4. (a) Output power and standard deviation of the temporal signals at different pump powers in the bidirectional pump scheme. (b) The
time domain signal and its Fourier spectra at the operation of ∼2.88 kW.
Figure 5. (a) Output power and standard deviation of the temporal signals at different pump powers in the bidirectional pump scheme. (b) The
time domain signal and its Fourier spectra at the operation of 3.05 kW.
is observed with a maximum of ∼2.88 kW. As shown in
figure 4(a), the standard deviations of the temporal signals
increase remarkably around the rollover output power.
Figure 4(b) gives the time domain signal and the corresp-
onding Fourier spectrum at the operation of ∼2.88 kW. It is
certain that TMI is observed at this power level. In con-
sideration of the kHz-level modulation frequency of the
temporal fluctuation around the threshold, it seems the
occurrence of TMI is mainly attributed to the counter-pump
power. To effectively utilize all the pump power, the dis-
tribution of the LDs needs to be optimized.
In order to avoid the occurrence of TMI and further scale
the output power, we shifted one LD from the counter-pump
direction to the co-pump direction. The exact optimized LD
distributions are shown in figure 1. After the optimization, the
output power dependence on the total bidirectional pump
power is shown in figure 5(a). A maximum output power of
3.05 kW is achieved with respective co-pump and counter-
pump powers of ∼1.85 kW and ∼2.5 kW. The slope effi-
ciency of the monolithic fiber laser oscillator is ∼73%. The
5
B Yang et al
temporal signals are measured at different pump levels, and
the standard deviations of the temporal signals are shown in
figure 5(a). No remarkable increase of the standard deviations
is observed in the power scaling process. At the output power
of 3.05 kW, the time domain signal and the Fourier spectrum
are depicted in figure 5(b). The time domain signal is quite
stable, and no frequency peak is observed in the Fourier
spectrum. It can be verified that the TMI does not occur at this
power level. We also measured the beam quality of the output
laser. The inset in figure 5(a) is the beam profile of the output
laser at 3.05 kW and the M2 factor is measured to be ∼1.3. It
is confirmed that near diffraction-limited beam quality is
obtained. Further power scaling of the laser oscillator is
limited by the available pump power.
In the optimized bidirectional pump distribution, the
optical spectra of the output laser at different power levels are
shown in figure 6. Since three parts of cladding light strippers
are utilized, no pump light is observed in the spectra. The
spectral bandwidth of the output laser increase with the output
powers. At the operation of 3.05 kW, the 3 dB bandwidth is
J. Opt. 20 (2018) 025802
Figure 6. The optical spectra of the output laser at different power
levels.
∼3.6 nm. The Raman stokes light is observed at 3.05 kW, but
the intensity is ∼29 dB below the signal laser. The corresp-
onding power ratio of the Raman stokes light is less than
0.5% of the total power. Compared to the optical spectra in
[8], in spite of the higher output power in this monolithic fiber
laser oscillator, the intensity of the Raman stokes declines. It
is certain that the optimizations we have made effectively
mitigate the SRS and enable further power scaling.
4. Conclusion
In summary, we reported a high-power ytterbium-doped
monolithic fiber laser oscillator with simultaneous optim-
ization of the SRS and TMI. Several minor optimizations for
mitigating SRS were designed and utilized in the construction
of the fiber laser oscillator, while the optimization for the TMI
is realized through investigating the dependence of the TMI
threshold on the pump power distributions. Similar to the
fiber amplifiers, the pump distribution in the fiber laser
oscillators also have notable influence on the TMI threshold.
In this work, the TMI threshold was enhanced by ∼30%
when the counter-pump scheme is employed instead of the
co-pump schemes. By employing a bidirectional-pump
scheme and appropriately distributing the pump powers, the
TMI threshold can be remarkably enhanced. With the opti-
mizations of SRS and TMI, the output laser power of the
monolithic fiber laser oscillator was scaled to 3.05 kW with
near diffraction limited beam quality.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Mr Kun Zhang, Mr Dong
Zhi, Mr Xiaoyong Xu, Mr Zichao Zhou, Mr Lin Chen, Miss
Siliu Liu, Miss Yakun Liu and Miss Yi Luo, for the help in
construction of the laser oscillator and measuring the laser
performance in the experiment. The work was supported by
National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.
6
B Yang et al
61505260) and National Key Research and Development
Program of Ministry of Science and Technology of China
(Grant No. 2016YFB0402204).
ORCID iDs
Baolai Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4158-3882
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